This past weekend, February 6th through the 8th, Deer Valley Resort hosted their annual FIS Freestyle Ski World Cup. A hometown stop on the tour well recognized and loved by many U.S. Ski team members. The world's best freestyle skiers, including the U.S. Freestyle Ski Team, showed up at the event ready to compete.
Thursday night found Jaelin Kauf and Hannah Soar making it into the super final round. Both barely missed the podium with Hannah taking 4th and Jaelin taking 5th.
"I skied my best run in finals, and unfortunately made a mistake on my bottom air in super finals. But I am really happy with how I am skiing, and I always love skiing the fastest times!" - Jaelin Kauf
Finishing in 10th, 11th and 12th for the men's moguls team in the super final were Nick Page, Jesse Andringa and Brad Wilson, respectively.
On Saturday night the U.S. women's moguls team, led by Hannah Soar, Jaelin Kauf and Tess Johnson, were hoping for a podium sweep in the dual moguls event. All three of the athletes skied impressively well and advanced to the finals with Hannah Soar placing 2nd, moving her up to 6th in the World Cup rankings.
Jaelin Kauf, a Salt Lake City resident and Spyder athlete, also landed on the podium taking 3rd in the event. Making her fifth career Deer Valley podium.
We were able to catch up with Jaelin before her Saturday night win where she told us that Deer Valley is by far her favorite course on the World Cup tour, "it's long, steep and a lot of fun!!".
When asked how her season has been going so far, she replied, "My season has been going really well! I had some good results to start the season. My goal going into the year was to compete a new trick, which I have done successfully the past two events leading into Deer Valley! I’m really stoked to take that new step and push my jumping this year!".
The moguls World Cup will continue February 22nd in Tazawako, Japan. We cannot wait to see what the U.S. Ski Team accomplishes this season.
"We head off on the 17th to Japan. From there we are on the road for the rest of the year, headed to Kazakhstan, Russia, Sweden for World Cup finals and then back to the US for US Nationals at Squaw Valley!" - Jaelin Kauf
Photos: Steve Earl Photography
